Are you sure it's copper, looks to be brass to me, but you have it in your hands so you would be the better judge?
The design of the nut seem to indicate that it's a "pipe fitting", e.g plumbing fitting, hydraulic fitting, etc., the threads don't go all the way through leading me to believe that a metal tube/pipe with a flared end is sealed to a mating surface by the nut, you can see a very similar, if not much the same, nut and the pipe by looking under your kitchen sink at the sink's drain hole, although what you will most likely see today could be very well PVC or metal.